Big Labor Draws Line in the Nevada Sand

Pro-Right to Work Nevadans Gird For Battle

Unless Nevada voters voice their opposition at once, union boss-aligned lawmakers in Carson City may soon send a Right to Work destruction scheme to Gov. Steve Sisolak’s desk, and he may sign it.
Credit: Bizuayehu Tesfaye/Las Vegas Review-Journal

Compulsory Unionism the ‘Last Thing’ Nevada Employees
Need

As union insider Brian Young correctly pointed out in a
post-election wrap-up commentary last November, it is “largely thanks to the
work of the Culinary Workers” union hierarchy that Democrat politicians will
control the governorship and both chambers of the Legislature in Right to Work
Nevada this year.

The Las Vegas-based Culinary Workers union, otherwise known
as UNITE HERE Local 226, boasts of an electioneering field program “unmatched
by any other in the country.”

But union operatives and their favored Nevada politicians
said remarkably little in 2018 about what UNITE HERE bigwigs expected to get in
return for their investment.

Steve Sisolak: ‘Premature’ to Discuss Right to Work Plans
Until After Election Day!

Even as they gratefully accepted massive “in-kind” and cash
support from Big Labor’s machine, incoming Gov. Steve Sisolak and his fellow
Democrat politicians running for Nevada Assembly and Senate seats dodged
questions about whether they would target Nevada’s six-and-a-half decade-old
Right to Work Law.

This statute simply protects employees from being fired for
refusal to join or bankroll an unwanted union.

At a September 6 campaign event in Las Vegas, when directly
asked if he would try to reinstate forced union dues and fees in Nevada if he
was elected, Mr. Sisolak said: “I think it’s premature to talk about that at
this point.”

National Right to Work Committee Vice President John Kalb
commented: “Steve Sisolak insisted it was ‘premature’ to discuss his Right to
Work plans until after Election Day, because he knew those plans wouldn’t be
popular with Nevada voters.

“Indeed, a recent scientific statewide poll, conducted by
SurveyUSA for the National Institute for Labor Relations Research, found that a
four-to-one majority of registered voters (67% to 16%) favor keeping their
Right to Work law on the books.”

As SurveyUSA pointed out in its summary of the poll’s
findings, Right to Work “is supported by a majority of every demographic
sub-population,” including Republicans and Democrats, men and women, and
Nevadans under 50 and over 50.

Members of union households support Right to Work by a
three-to-one margin.

Overwhelming Public Support Alone Won’t Suffice to Save Nevadans’
Right to Work

Unfortunately, long experience shows that, all too often,
politicians worry about the public’s overwhelming support for the Right to Work
principle more when they are in the middle of a hotly contested campaign than
they do after they are safely elected.

During the legislative session that will begin a few weeks
after this Newsletter edition goes to press in early January, Committee leaders
anticipate an all-out push by Culinary Workers union bosses to eviscerate or
flat-out eliminate Right to Work protections in Nevada.

“It’s a fact that union boss-allied lawmakers and the
governor did not campaign on such legislation, and it’s a fact that Nevadans
lopsidedly oppose it,” said Mr. Kalb.

“But these facts will not suffice to prevent a
forced-unionism power grab from being sent to Gov. Sisolak’s desk and signed,
unless Nevada voters voice their opposition at once.

“That’s why, in early January, local grassroots activists
began mobilizing, with the Committee’s assistance, people from all walks of
life to contact their elected officials and urge them to side with the
four-to-one majority of Nevadans who want to keep unionism voluntary, not
compulsory.”

In Nevada, Ex-Californians Can ‘Live the Middle-Class Life’
That Eluded Them

It is undeniable there is a mountain of evidence showing
that Right to Work is associated with a lower cost of living, higher living
standards, and faster job and income growth.

That’s why, according to U.S. Census Bureau data, the number
of Nevada residents in their peak-earning years (ages 35-54) rose by
55,000 from 2007 to 2017, even as the total peak-earning-year population of
neighboring forced-unionism California fell by 152,000.

As Los Angeles Times columnist Steve Lopez admitted
in late 2017, thousands and thousands of former natives of the Golden State are
moving to Nevada each year so they can “live the middle-class life that eludes
them in California.”

“The last thing Nevada needs,” said Mr. Kalb, “is to replicate the very pro-union monopoly policies that are driving working people and their families out of California.”